Is Bjørn Lomborg Another Alarmist In Skeptic’s Clothing?
In a commentary article in the Financial Post on Tuesday, Bjørn Lomborg argues that ‘net zero’ is “on its way out”, as politicians across the world face up to the high cost and tiny climate returns of raising energy prices
With voters “weary of soaring energy bills and annoyed by increasingly hysteric and patronising climate rhetoric”, governments from the US to UK, Germany to Australia are waking up to the “simple truth”: “aggressive ‘net zero’ mandates are delivering economic pain for unmeasurable and far-off climate gain”.
Lomborg senses “a new pragmatism” entering the climate debate.
Lomborg takes the example of United Kingdom, whose ‘net zero’ law enacted in 2019 committed it to zero emissions by 2050. “Hailed as bold leadership, its reality has been economic sabotage” as the UK’s industrial electricity prices surged at four times the increase in the US — leaving the UK with the highest power rates in the Western world.
While Prime Minister Keir Starmer is reportedly preparing to delay or dilute key ‘green’ commitments to curb “voter revolt”, Reform UK, leading the national polls by far, promises to end ‘net zero’ targets when the party comes to power.
Kemi Badenoch, leader of the Conservatives, pledged in 2025 to repeal the Climate Change Act if they were returned to power. Lomborg notes the retreat from penurious green policies in the EU, Germany, Australia, Japan and even in Democrat states in the US.
So how does the Western painful dalliance with ‘net zero’ end, according to Lomborg?
Lomborg, like Gates, is a ‘techno-optimist’, and he sees hope in government-funded research “to achieve breakthroughs in nuclear, carbon capture, geo-engineering and far more efficient green-energy generation and storage”.
Words like ‘carbon capture, geo-engineering and far more efficient green-energy generation and storage’ are not what you would normally expect from climate skeptics.
To climate activists, he is a dangerous heretic who undermines the urgency of ‘The Science’ by questioning the costs of ‘net zero’. To many skeptics, he is a frustrating near-ally who dismantles the climate policy edifice brick by brick — only to stop short of questioning its foundations.
Lomborg insists that ‘climate change’ is real, that CO2-driven warming is a problem and that humanity must ultimately ‘solve’ it.
Are those the words of a skeptic, or an alarmist?
Yet he also argues, persuasively, that the costs of current climate policies vastly exceed their benefits, and that trillions are being squandered on symbolic ‘decarbonisation’ while far more urgent human needs go unmet.
This intellectual tension — between scepticism about policy and faith in the premise — defines Lomborg’s conundrum. He rightly rejects ‘net zero’ as economically ruinous but still accepts the moral framing that elevates man-made CO2 to a civilisational threat in the first place.
He denounces coercive regulation and ‘carbon’ taxes but places hope in large-scale, government-funded research and development to deliver future technological salvation. In doing so, Lomborg offers a critique that is incisive but incomplete — and ultimately justifying the very climate orthodoxy he seeks to reform.
Lomborg’s most valuable contribution has been to puncture the illusion that climate mitigation is a ‘free lunch’ or ‘win-win’. He draws on the work of William Nordhaus, the Nobel prize winning economist who is well known for “integrating climate change into long-run macroeconomic analysis”.
Lomborg treats ‘climate change’ as a long-term economic externality whose damages, while real, are modest relative to the benefits of growth. The central error of ‘net zero’ policies, he argues, is not that they fail to reduce emissions but that they impose crushing costs today for vanishingly small benefits decades hence.
Events have vindicated Lomborg, at least as far as the costs are concerned. The ‘green’ ‘consensus’ is unravelling across Europe under the weight of high energy prices, deindustrialisation and voter revolt.
Britain’s political class, once united in climate sanctimony, now speaks openly of delaying or diluting ‘net zero’ commitments. Australia’s centre-Right Liberal party and Japan’s new PM Sanae Takaichi are retreating from official ‘net zero’ targets.
Even the Tony Blair Institute has urged suspending ‘carbon’ taxes on gas in the name of cheaper power.
What was sold as ‘green growth’ has now revealed itself as no growth.
Lomborg has been clear-eyed about this retreat, describing it not as moral failure but as political reality. He notes that governments are discovering that climate virtue cannot be eaten, worn or used to heat homes.
The lived experience of voters has finally punctured the abstractions of climate modelling. On this terrain, Lomborg has done more than most to restore economic realism to a debate long dominated by moral theatrics.
Yet for Lomborg this retreat from ‘net zero’ seems merely tactical. In his view, the destination — deep ‘decarbonisation’ — remains appropriate, only the route is wrong.
This insistence is where his analysis begins to raise questions among other sceptics, as saying CO2 does drive temperature and ‘clmate change’ is a problem that requires solving is not something you would expect a climate skeptic to say.
That is the position climate alarmists take, so is Lomborg a skeptic or an alarmist? His stance would seem to suggest to your PSI editor the latter.
This article is adapted from a CO2 Coalition article. See the original article here substack.com
Header image: lomborg.com
Bold emphasis added
Michael J
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Remember that Lomborg is an economist and have never gone into the climate science claims.
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